The present invention relates to a vehicle head lamp. More particularly, the invention relates to a vehicle head lamp having a lamp body, a lens mounted on the front side of the lamp body, a reflector being disposed within a space defined by the lamp body and the lens while supporting a discharging lamp, the reflector being tiltable with respect to the lamp body, wherein a discharging lamp lighting unit supplies a discharging voltage to the discharging lamp through a plural number of connection cords, the vehicle head lamp being improved such that the connection cords are more flexible and a smooth tilting of the reflector is ensured.
In a known vehicle head lamp, a reflector supporting a light source is coupled with a lamp body by use of a leveling mechanism. The reflector is tilted with respect to the lamp body by operating the leveling mechanism to vary the aiming direction of the light beams emitted therefrom, viz., the direction in which the optical axis of the head lamp extends.
In the thus constructed vehicle head lamp, the light source supported by the reflector is usually a discharging lamp. Electric power is supplied to the discharging lamp from a discharging lamp lighting unit, through a plural number of connection cords.
A conventional connecting member including such connection cords is shown in FIG. 6.
As shown, each of the connection cords a is constructed such that a conductor b is covered with a cover layer c made of heat-resistant resin. Those connection cords a are disposed within the inner space of a protecting tube d made of rubber contained material. The protecting tube d is covered with a cylindrical member e formed by weaving conductive metal wires in a mesh. Thus, a connecting member f is formed with the connection cords a, protecting tube d and cylindrical member e.
The connecting member f is bent such that it meanders through the space between the lamp body and the reflector supported therein in a state that the connection cords a contained therein connect a discharging lamp (not shown) to a discharging lamp lighting unit placed outside the lamp body.
As described above, the connection cords a are disposed within the inner space of a protecting tube d made of rubber contained material. The reasons for this are: to protect the connection cords a against high temperature, and to prevent an attenuation of high tension pulses by spacing the connection cords a from the cylindrical member e. The reasons why the protecting tube d is covered with the cylindrical member e are: to prevent the protecting tube d from being damaged and to prevent the high frequency noise generated from the connection cords a from leaking outside.
The connecting member f is constructed such that the protecting tube d is fit into the cylindrical member en and the two connection cords a are both disposed within the protecting tube d. With the construction, it is necessary to design the protecting tube d so as to have a relatively large diameter. A flexibility of the connecting member f is reduced by the amount of the increase of the diameter.
In a case where the connecting member f is used, it is difficult to smoothly operate the leveling mechanism for tilting the reflector with respect to the lamp body because of a poor flexibility of the connecting member f.
The construction of the connecting member f has a further problem. Since the outside diameter of the protecting tube d is equal to the inside diameter of the cylindrical member e, it is difficult to insert the protecting tube d into the cylindrical member e.
One of the connection cords a is a high voltage cord, and connection cords are disposed side by side within the protecting tube d. Therefore, a high voltage applied to the high voltage cords adversely affects the durability of the other cord.